The
one thing he missed was the passage of time.
Shut up in this interior room, seeing the sky only second-hand; sleeping
when he grew lightheaded, barely half conscious the rest of the time. It was no way to live, not even for a month
– a week – and sometimes it would rush over him all at once, and Sagara would
feel consumed by it.
He
wasn’t sure of his own place anymore; he had no way to find his balance, no
landmark by which to right himself into equilibrium. If only he could see the sun he felt certain it would put
everything in context again.
No,
that wasn’t true… wasn’t anything like the truth. The truth – the real truth – was sharper and more accurate than
any blade he had ever wielded. Was too
overwhelming and vast to ever hold all in his mind at one time without being
devoured heart-first by it.
There
was a gap in his chest. Not a great
chasm, vast and imposing, not a hole, gaping and empty; just a tiny hollow
place where it felt as though muscle and bone had peeled back slightly. Aching faintly, hungrily, whenever a draw of
breath pressed against it.
They
left him alone for the most part. While
he healed, alone with distant pain and nearby memories. It was the woman, Omasu, he saw the most,
with her hair neatly arranged by day, loose and careless in the evenings. Strange, that he hadn’t recognized her until
he saw her once more with her hair down.
Misao came by nearly as often, slipping around the edge of the screen
with all the clumsy stealth she could manage.
She perched at his bedside and told him a thousand trivial things, and
he was so grateful for her presence that he would never admit that none of them
were what he really wanted to hear.
A
long time passed before he saw Aoshi Shinomori again. So long that he had nearly forgotten what it felt like to not
miss him.
“Good
morning,” Sagara said quietly, as the screen slid back with a different sound
then he was used to, as a different silhouette stood framed by the hallway
lamp. He had been hesitant to
speak. He hadn’t known how his voice
would sound; it seemed as though suddenly all the breathable air had been
sucked out of the room.
“It’s
evening,” Aoshi informed him shortly, dragging the panel carefully closed
behind him.
Sagara’s
eyes flickered away. “Oh.”
For
a moment, there was a sharp gaze on him, searching his profile as though he
suspected he was hiding something profound and significant there. Then the boy shrugged, his lips parting just
enough for a soft noise of dismissal.
He let himself in, and slid to his knees at Sagara’s bedside.
Silence
stretched out like a summer afternoon.
“They
think you’re dead, you know.”
Sagara
closed his eyes. Maybe they were closer to the truth then even Aoshi knew. It had been a long time since he had felt
alive, long enough that it was going to take more than a few terse words to
chase the ice away from his blood. “So what?”
But
the boy seemed unsurprised by his response.
“It’s not unfortunate, you know.
For a man in your position to be dead a while.”
Sagara
could have laughed, would have laughed if he thought Aoshi might let him get
away from it. “Perfect.” He sighed quietly, his attention slipping
away to the planked ceiling. There were
204 watermarks in the wood. He knew
because he had counted them nine times in the last seven days.
“Indeed.” The ghost of a pout shaped the boy’s mouth,
even as his eyes turned cold. Not
confrontational, not exactly, just… shutting everything else out. “I’m sorry,” he said at last, “for the loss
of your men. But remember that you yet
live, Souzou Sagara.”
That
was only cold comfort. Sagara sighed,
pressing his eyes closed a moment, hands curling at his sides as he swallowed
hard against the bitter taste in the back of his throat. “Thank you,” he said at last, in a voice
that barely even trembled. “I haven’t
gotten a chance to tell you yet, but I’m very grateful for all you’ve done.”
Aoshi
blinked, and recoiled a little as though unsure of what to say. “You shouldn’t thank me. I did all that on my own.”
“All
the same…” Sagara trailed off as their
eyes met. He shook himself. “I’m sorry.
Give me your hand a moment.”
The
boy moved slowly, it seemed for almost as though without motion at all, like in
a dream. Using his arm for support, Sagara
pushed himself upright. A dull ache
clamored behind his ribs, but he brushed it aside like snowflakes from the
shoulder of a coat as he bent one knee up to his chest and wrapped his arms
around it for balance.
“Careful.” Aoshi watched him curiously, tilting his
head to the side. There was not enough
caution in his voice for Sagara to worry.
“I’m
all right,” he assured. “Hmm…” A smile
brushed his lips, fleetingly. “It’s
just as I suspected. You look a little
different when I don’t have to stare up at you.”
“Excuse
me?”
Sagara
blinked, and something that had stretched between then abruptly seemed to
crumble and collapse. Structurally
unsound bridges of communication. He
looked away. “It’s nothing. I have to wonder about something all day.”
“Yes,
I suppose,” Aoshi said, but his tone was enough to convey what he thought of
the idea of Sagara’s thoughts straying to him.
“You
don’t approve?”
“No…”
Aoshi recoiled slightly again, as though he had been touched. “That’s not it. I just… don’t see what I have to do with all of this.”
“Nothing,”
Sagara answered easily. But it wasn’t
an easy question. “Or maybe…
everything. I can’t even begin to set
it all straight yet.”
He
regretted it almost immediately, speaking that way to a complete stranger. He didn’t expect Aoshi to understand, and he
certainly didn’t expect compassion. He
hadn’t felt this powerless in a long time, maybe years. And he waited, shoulders bowed, as though
for judgment.
But
condemnation never came, or if it did it was only in the form of skin against
his own. A fingertip brushed lightly,
hesitantly, over the bend of his elbow.
“Did you believe them?” Aoshi asked softly, much too softly for a
question like that. “All the lies they
gave you?”
Sagara
twisted his arm slightly, as though seeking another touch, like the one that
had centered his thoughts so completely and absolutely. But Aoshi had already pulled away, out of
reach. All that remained was his
question, heavy and thick as a monsoon in the air between them.
He
should have known better than to ask a question like that. Sagara should have known better than to
answer, but something about the way he had spoken just then pulled the words
from him. “I… wanted to believe
them.” A spear of agony, like a thousand
needles in his chest. “I suppose that
makes me the biggest fool of all.”
“No.” Aoshi shook his head a little. “No, you’re just like everyone else. Deceiving yourself into believing that the
way things turned out might actually be better than any other possible
outcome…”
“Aoshi…” There was a brief, terrifying instant of
uncertainty. The moment after the boy
spoke when he had no arguments to offer, nothing to refute his words. The sensation of standing at the apex of a
high mountain, and just… letting himself fall. He had never fallen before, had
always pulled away at the last moment, and the feeling was icy and weightlessly
nauseating. Sagara shook his head. If he let himself fall, he knew he would
only end up getting hurt. “I can’t
accept that.”
The
boy’s eyebrows slanted up. “But it’s
the truth. You of all people should be
able to see that now.”
“But
do you really believe it yourself?”
Sagara felt his hands curling into fists, heard the sharpening pitch of
his voice. He shouldn’t have been this
desperate, and he drew a long, slow breath for composure. “Do you really believe… things can never be
any better than they are right now?
That can’t be right.”
“Come
now,” Aoshi said. His hand stretched
out once more, as though he were calming a nervous animal, and Sagara drew
away. “How can you say that after what
you’ve experienced? I thought you would
have learned… how futile change really is.”
“Things…
things are going to get better.” Sagara
closed his eyes, bowing his head slightly as though to assure himself that
those words were true. “They’re going
to get better. It doesn’t matter what
you say, as long as people have faith in that much… you’ll always be wrong.”
“You’re
still so naïve.”
“Shut
up!” His eyes flashed, so brightly that
Aoshi actually drew away a little. It
had been a long time, Sagara thought, since he had lost his temper. Even with bullets blackening the air around
him, the woods invaded by the smell of spilt blood, he had felt so calm, almost
numb. But then, it had been a long time
since he’d had a conversation like this.
“My
men are dead,” he said, quietly, carefully, as though testing the words for
some intrinsic truth beyond the literal that they might secretly hold. “My… friends. They were everything I had, can’t you understand that? I can’t just sit here and listen to you tell
me it was all a waste. Not when… it
still hurts so much.”
Aoshi
was silent for a moment, and he tilted his head curiously to the side. “Very well, then. I won’t say anymore.”
“Aoshi,
I…” Sagara sighed. His wounds had begun to throb again, blunted
and constant, and his hand drifted slowly to rest over the bandages that
crossed his left shoulder. He was only
dully surprised to feel the warmth of fresh blood beneath his fingertips. It seemed so appropriate somehow. But, no, he wasn’t dead yet. And Aoshi wasn’t to blame for where he was
now. “Oh God, Aoshi, that’s not the point at all…”
“Calm
down.” Careful hands unwound the
bandages from his shoulder, wiped the blood from his skin. Aoshi tossed the stained gauze aside, and it
slapped wetly against the floorboards.
“Why don’t you tell me what the point is?”
“The
point,” Sagara echoed numbly. He arched
his back a little, to make it easier for Aoshi to rewrap his wound. “I don’t… know what the point is
anymore.” His breath caught in a quiet
hiss as the boy cinched the bandages tight.
“Ouch.”
“I’m
nearly done,” Aoshi assured quietly. He
settled back on his knees, swiping his hands discreetly on the edge of the
futon to clean the last traces of blood from his palms. “It’s not bad. You’ll be all right.”
“Thank
you.” All the strength seemed to rush
out of him abruptly, and Sagara sank back to the mattress. The hollow metallic taste of tears flooded
his throat for a moment, and he ached, deep and impassioned. The argument suddenly seemed so far away, so
removed from where he was right now, trembling and bleeding, that he couldn’t
even conceive a shape for it any more, and a void had opened up in the space
between them he had once filled with words.
He
knew before he tried to speak how dull and unconvincing his voice would sound,
how completely exhausted. “Aoshi, I
just…”
“Save
it.” The boy shook his head
slightly. “For later.”
Sagara
watched him a long moment, as though gauging his sincerity. “All right,” he said at last, around a sigh
like an unspoken admission of defeat.
But he wasn’t giving up yet. His
faith was battered – he was just beginning to realize how thin it had become –
but he was not broken. “It still
matters,” he said distantly.
“Yes,
I know.” Aoshi pushed at last to his
feet, but not before offering him one last glance. “Rest, Sagara. I think
you need it.”
He
said nothing, didn’t even look up as Aoshi turned to go. He watched him into the hallway out of the
corner of his eye; not daring to turn his head until the empty rattle of a
screen dragged shut announced his passing.